NORTHERN IRELAND INTERNATIONAL ORGAN COMPETITION 2025 ANNOUNCES DATES AND JURY

The Northern Ireland International Organ Competition (NIIOC) will take place from Monday 11 August to Wednesday 13 August 2024 in Armagh. This year’s jury will be chaired by Sophie-Véronique Cauchefer-Choplin, organist of the Great Organ of Saint Sulpice in Paris, who will be joined by Simon Harden, lecturer in organ performance at the TU Dublin Conservatoire and Organist and Director of Music at Christ Church Cathedral, Waterford, and by David Hill, artistic director of the Bach Choir, London, the Yale Schola Cantorum, Connecticut and of the Charles Wood Summer School, which runs concurrently with the organ competition.

The upper age limit for competitors is 21 on Monday 11 August. The Senior competition for players of post-Grade 8 standard and Intermediate category for players of Grades 6–8 standard take place in St Patrick’s Church of Ireland Cathedral, Armagh and the Junior Competition for players of Grades 4–5 in St Malachy’s Roman Catholic Church, Armagh. 

The first prize, supported by the John Pilling Trust, will be £4,000 plus several prestigious recital dates. Full details of the monetary prizes and the portfolio of recitals at venues such as St Thomas, Fifth Avenue (New York); St Paul’s Cathedral, Westminster Abbey and St George’s, Hanover Square (London); Trinity College Cambridge, St. Michael's Church, Dun Laoghaire; Glasgow Cathedral, Galway Cathedral and St Anne’s Cathedral, Belfast can be found on the competition website.

Commenting on her role as jury chair, Sophie-Véronique Cauchefer said: ‘I am so proud to preside over the panel of this international competition. It is so good to meet different panel members with different ideas and styles – and also to see that the organ continues to be played by the new generation!’ 

Richard Yarr MBE DL, chair of the NIIOC Board, said: ‘We are very much looking forward to welcoming competitors and our distinguished jury members to Armagh this summer. NIIOC is now established as a highly attractive early stop on the competition circuit for young organists, and we are delighted that our roster of former winners includes so many players who have gone on to achieve great success in other competitions and in their professional careers.’